Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Love for the leaf

It was only yesterday while preparing dinner it stuck to me that may be I should write about the curry leaves sometime...Well, this may surprise many...who know me...cuz they also know that I never had a love for cooking! In fact...kitchen was just as unexplored for me as Mars is to the mankind... that was until I moved out of India...Yeah! slowly its getting me...I am enjoying my experimentations in the kitchen... though sometimes they do end up in disasters!

Coming back to curry leaves, or kadhi patta as it is called in most of India...or meetha neem patta, as we UPites call it! I was at a friend's place a few days back... and she suggested I must use the curry leaves to add fragrance and taste to my food. Though I wasn't very convinced at first, I nevertheless decided to give it a try after tasting the food she had prepared. And, on my next trip to Patel Cash & Carry I got a pack of fresh curry leaves.

The first time I tried it...I was a bit sceptic...how my family would react to the new found fragrance in my food. But everyone appreciated! Bingo! That is it! Curry leaves have now replaced the dry Bay leaves that I have been using all this while. And, they have become a regular feature of my food.... So much so that last week my husband commented: Are you going to use curry leaves in every dish you prepare now? My answer...? You must have guessed that by now!

My mum always made me go in the garden and pluck a few fresh ones... now I know why. May be I will do the same when I have kids too (and a garden!).

Curry leaves work the best when you put them first in oil along with cumin (jeera)...so try it that way.

Well...I don't know much about the curry leaves...so I am not going to profess my intelligence on the subject...but my experience says...it's a mighty good ingredient and worth a use in the curries that you prepare!

6 comments:

Mumma's musings said...

Good post Juhi. U really have a creative mind...from travel n life u came straight into the kitchen thing :)

Reeta Skeeter said...

Oye champ! Don't you put curry patta everywhere babes... I also pluck curry patta for myself as well as mom :D Patel place sounds fun... you should take pics of that place as well... and yeah nice post as always! :D Wishing you luck and fun for your experiments in the kitchen :D

dRoZzY!!! said...

oh the patel cash n carry....
i so very miss it from the suburbs of chicago.
nostagia at is best!!!

Juhi said...

Parul: thanks. kabhi na kabhi to ana hi tha kitchen mein :P
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Crescenet: cant decipher what u wrote.
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Skeeter: Curry patta is cool. I enjoy using it. haan will write about patels sometime... :)
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Drozzy: patel rocks...atleast it gives me a steady supply of Indian groceries. what would we do without it?

Rashmi Jhamb said...

u and kitchen....u know what i will say....but i can't help remembering that day...i know u still remember that.....:) hey try curry leavs with black rai..they blend well...

Juhi said...

Rashmi: I know u cant forget hat day..and neither can I ..thats why I wrote "...Well, this may surprise many...who know me...cuz they also know that I never had a love for cooking!"